Writing in Italics

Hello. readers!

Over the course of decades--beginning, honestly, when I was four years old--I’ve written mainstream novels and personal diaries; just-the-facts journalism and analytical nonfiction books; even two pieces of flash-CNF (creative nonfiction). Never before, however, have I put out into the world something like this newsletter, which combines the personal with hard facts.

Why do it now?

One (selfish) reason is that trying different types of writing helps me become a better writer.

“Now” seems the perfect time, because my new novel, HER DAUGHTER, focuses on a family where the father deliberately gaslights the daughter in order to alienate her from her mother--a painful and too-common phenomenon known as Parental Alienation.

And this month--April 25--hosts Parental Alienation Awareness Day.

I’ll explain more below...after this peek behind the scenes of Her Daughter.

A couple of scenes you won’t see in the book

My novel Her Daughter has 93,000 words. Here are some you won’t read in it:

(In various early drafts, these short scenes were the start of Chapter Two or Chapter Three.)

Will my daughter wear my wedding dress?

Florence had saved her own white satin wedding dress all this time, twenty-five years, in a plastic dry-cleaner’s bag in the hall closet. For Alice, the tailor simply took in the waist and bust a couple of inches and transformed what had been Florence’s floor-length gown into a scalloped mid-calf skirt that matched the scalloped neckline. “Keep the shoulder padding,” he told Alice. “It’s vintage.”

“What if I have a daughter who wears this dress someday,” Alice teased her mother, “and she needs to make the bust bigger again?”

A minute before the ceremony, Roz pulled a few white roses from Alice’s bouquet to twine into her permed curls.

And with the roses entangled, Alice was suddenly standing next to Dan on his mother’s patio, underneath the high branches of an orange tree, the bougainvillea spreading gloriously purple up the hill, almost everyone she knew sitting in the three rows of white folding chairs. Also, a couple dozen people she didn’t know. Way in the back, James was quietly strumming chords of no particular song on his guitar. His girlfriend of the moment was also sitting in one of the chairs.

If Alice’s stomach was churning... all brides felt that way, didn’t they?

Dan’s face was so happy, so beaming, so in love, as he wrapped his arms fully around her, and everyone cheered. It was going to be good.

People wanted to see the rings.

People wanted to hear about the honeymoon plans.

Everyone wanted to kiss her.

The wedding cake was three layers of chocolate with chocolate-pudding filling. Waiters in short white jackets carried Champagne and escargot, caviar on crackers and sauteed veggies, guacamole and plantain chips and at least six kinds of cheese, and the smells curled together in the air, along with the tang of orange blossoms. Walt was chewing toothpicks, now that Roz had made him quit smoking. Dan’s father was arguing with Dan’s sister.

James’s faux-Dylan voice was suddenly loud, from out of nowhere, from the back of the patio. And he was singing--no, he wouldn’t--not that one--but he was: Something in the way she moves/Attracts me like no other lover...

Alice pulled at Dan’s arm. “We have to dance. Now!”

“Sure. Whenever you want.” But as he pulled her toward his chest, he asked, smiling, “You actually like this music? Okay.”

“First dance! Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Wilson!” someone called out. However, the patio was too small. Dan and Alice shuffled for three steps, bumped into two people, turned left, and grazed a table. Finally, James switched songs. If I were a carpenter...

That was better. His voice, now, was more like another layer of satin wrapping her.

Would you marry me anyway? Would you have my baby?

“For our first anniversary,” Dan whispered in her ear, “I’ll take you to a real concert.”

The photographer showed up two hours late. He’d missed the ceremony, the bouquet-throwing, and the cake-cutting. (”So cut another piece of cake,” Florence said.)

“Now he wants to take my picture? All sweaty?” Alice demanded.

“And the pretty flowers in your hair are messed up,” Dan’s sister said sadly.

Alice pulled Roz into the kitchen to braid fresh roses, but Roz was going to have to leave right after that, exhausted and seven months pregnant. Her own auburn hair was straggling out of the chignon she’d made for herself, and her blue eyes were getting reddened, probably from the unfamiliar contact lenses.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. The baby’s just very excited about the chocolate cake.” Roz moved a step sideways to study Alice’s head. “So you changed your last name? You’re Mrs.-Dr. Wilson, now?”

“Finish my roses, please. Before you get too tired.”

“I am, I am. I just remember how you got on my case for changing my name.”

“Well, it was really important to Dan. He said it was symbolic, the two of us as a couple. Us against the world. That kind of thing.” As Roz opened her mouth, Alice circled a finger lightly over Roz’s belly, which prodded well into her own. “So when can I make the baby shower for Little Junior? Or Juniorette? Are you feeling confident enough yet to schedule it?”

“When I’m eight months.”

“Are you still so worried? You’re feeling okay, aren’t you?”

“I don’t tempt the Fates. Now how many damn roses do you want?”

When Alice and Dan finally got the photo proofs, three months later, Alice’s hair flowed in gentle brown curls around four fresh white roses, and her skin looked perfectly dry and unsweaty. However, her smile was so slight that it looked like she wasn’t even smiling, and they ended up not ordering any prints at all.

**********

And then it was a year. Their marriage had lasted a year.

“You know,” he said, “we really should buy a house. Instead of handing our money over to a landlord every month.”

“Okay. Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”

“Spanish-style or colonial?”

“Modernistic?”

“Gone with the Wind?”

“Too many choices!” she laughed.

“Two bedrooms? Would you like a home office? It could double as a guest room.”

“Well, wouldn’t we need at least one more bedroom, for the kids?”

“When,” Dan asked, popping a last bite of chocolate filling in his mouth, “did we ever talk about having kids?”

….and now to explain

These scenes are partly why I’m writing this monthly newsletter. A novel is much more than the words that actually get published, so my idea here is to give you a look behind those words. That could mean such “extras” as:

• The most oddball research I did for Her Daughter--plus a little more digging just for this newsletter

• Real-life news that relates to some of the novel’s themes

• How I chose the “furniture” of the book (for instance, the setting or people’s careers)

• “Name That Character” and other contests to help with my next novel

• Books I’m reading

• Interviews with other authors

• Synopses of the best novels I wrote as a child (really; a couple of them aren’t bad...)

Anyway, that’s the plan. But as I’ve learned from writing and publishing eight nonfiction books and now three novels, I need to be ready to ditch the plan, because every book insists on walking its own path.

Thank you for trying this experiment with me.

Fran

PS In case you’re wondering about the title of this newsletter...“Italic” has several meanings. It’s the special typeface that’s traditional for a book title. It can also be used for emphasis (”She said what?”) or to convey inner thoughts (He’s lying, she thought). And visually, for me, it evokes rushing forward.